


Christmas on the Western Front

by Unforth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dean Winchester Thinks Castiel is Dead, Epistolary, Grimdark, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Character Death, Permanent Injury, Soldier Castiel, Soldier Dean, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-03 20:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Ficlet written to the prompt: historical au where dean and cas are fighting on opposite sides of world war one and meet during the christmas truce of 1914.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jhoom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhoom/gifts).



> Jhoom posted an idea and said she didn't mind if I wrote a ficlet, so here we are.
> 
> Original Tumblr post: http://unforth-ninawaters.tumblr.com/post/171969869518/jhoomwrites-historical-au-where-dean-and-cas

* _This is crazy._ *

The scarred no man's land between the lines, so often impassable due to the unceasing barrage of machine gun and heavy artillery fire, was impassable now due to soldiers crowding every inch of land not too pocked and torn by explosions to be stood on.

* _Every_ _centimeter_ _of land, Winchester...gotta at_ _least_ _pretend to be British..._ *

Peeking the top of his head and his eyes over the lip of the trench, Dean struggled to convince himself that emerging wasn't suicide. Sure, soldiers flooded the field, his comrades in arms climbing a nearby ladder to join the throng, but if even one Kraut bastard decided to man an emplacement instead of joining in the Christmas spirit...

"Don't be a humbug, Winchester!"

Dean wasn't sure who knocked him the in back and spoke as they went by. He tumbled to his butt in the muddy bottom of the trench, walls pitted, ground littered with casings and broken equipment. The trench was hell, Ypres was hell, all of fucking Europe was hell, but from the ruined land above him he could hear cheerful conversation and singing, smell cigarette smoke and roasted meat, and maybe...

...even if he got shot for emerging, even a single moment of freedom to walk and breathe and feel alive was worth it. He'd rather die with his head in the open air than live in that trench forever.

* _Gonna die in this god-forsaken trench anyway, might as_ _well_ _smoke a fag with the enemy before we all burn..._ *

Dean climbed from the trench.

A rainbow of uniforms brought color to the bleak landscape, khaki and green and blue and red marking the troops of different countries. Most along Dean's section of the line were British Expeditionary Forces facing off against Germans, but there were knots of Frenchmen and even a group of Belgians cut off from home, sticking together and glaring at any German who came nearby. Some of Dean's friends gestured him over and, so quickly he was dazed by the transition from enmity to camaraderie, he was with them, shaking hands with a group of Germans who spoke their harsh language but smiled warmly, their eyes sparkling, their body language guileless.

* _I knew they were just like us, but...they're just like us..._ *

"Fraulacht Wineactten," Dean fumbled awkwardly as he shook the last hand. The man, helmet gone, handsome despite the dirt darkening his skin and stubble covering his jaw, dark hair a bird's nest, blinked in confusion and then threw his head back and laughed.

When was the last time Dean had heard anyone laugh?

It was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.

"Fröhliche Weinachten?" the man corrected. Dean grimaced. "Merry Christmas." His accent was thick, his voice deep and lyrical and incongruous from his lean frame, but his words were unmistakably English.

Their hands were still clasped.

"My name is Novak," added the man. His eyes opened wide, crinkled at the corners by his beaming grin, and Dean was arrested by bright blue.

"Dean," he offered, throat going dry. * _No, ignore it - men are off limits, always,_ _forever_ _, and especially here, especially now, especially_ * him. * _We're enemies._ _Whatever_ _we are today, when we return to the trenches we_ _return_ _to trying to murder each other_ _until_ _this bloody, forsaken conflict ends or_ _the_ _world burns to cinders around us._ * "Dean Winchester."

"You don't sound British," Novak observed.

"Neither do you," Dean retorted. He blanched, afraid he'd given offense - * _for fuck's sake what does it matter if_ _I_ _offend him?_ * - but instead, Novak laughed again.

"I studied at Oxford," said Novak.

"I'm from Kansas," Dean replied apologetically.

"So we are both of us out of our elements, caught up in a war that ought not to have been ours to fight..."

Dean shrugged. "Same could be said of every man jack of us." Novak conceded the point with a nod. "What's this war to any of us?"

Their hands were * _still_ * clasped. Novak started as he realized it and tried to draw away, but a strange euphoria seized Dean. He might die within the hour, and so might Novak, and Novak's laugh was so beautiful, and his smile so endearing, and if Dean took a chance...

...what was the worst that could happen?

Heart thudding as powerfully as it did under the rush of battle-adrenaline, Dean shifted his hand and threaded his fingers between Novak's. Novak blinked, went wide-eyed, and his smile grew shy.

He didn't take his hand away.

Dean smiled back, breaking eye contact in his embarrassment.

"Do you like to smoke?" Novak reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn package, the top torn apart to show two cigarettes still within.

"Sure," said Dean. "Um...I've got a chocolate ration, if you want..."

"Chocolate and cigarettes?" Novak's accent shivered up Dean's spine. "Sounds like a date."

Their eyes met.

Novak's gaze was shockingly blue and breathtakingly beautiful and Dean could only wish they'd met in a London club, where they could contrive to dance back to back while holding appropriately female partners before them, where they could sneak out back afterwards and exchange tobacco-flavored kisses between their chapped lips, where maybe they could--

"Come," said Novak. Dean tore his attention from Novak's lips, mind deluged by forbidden images. What Novak meant became clear when a cigarette parted Dean's lips. "We haven't much time."

"No," Dean replied hoarsely. There was never enough for some things, never enough time for men like Dean...like both of them, he thought, as Novak seductively puckered his lips and took a drag from the cigarette that Dean hadn't noticed him lighting.

"Tell me about Kansas," said Novak, dropping cross-legged to the ground and patting beside himself. Taking the unlit cigarette from his mouth, Dean settled beside him, rocky debris a low seat hard under his butt. There was scant space between them and Dean bridged it, brushing the tip of his cigarette against Novak's to light it.

"What, you trying to make me homesick?"  
"Home...sick...?"

"Fuck, don't worry about it. Kansas...Kansas is...well, Kansas is flat. Really damn flat. And..."

They might only have hours, but for as long as Dean could sit and talk and breathe and feel and live, he would. He would drown in Novak's eyes and let the world fall away. Maybe, if he was lucky, when his number came up he could remember the musky smell of the man and the twinkle in his blue depths and the brush of their hands together and he could think of that, focus on that, re-experience that one last time as an ameliorant to the pain of his torn body. With his last breath, he could at least remember.

* _This is crazy._ *

* _We're all crazy._ *

The day passed in quiet conversation and introspection and the heady scent of Novak's chocolatey breath dancing in Dean's nose. When the time for talk ended, when darkness fell and everyone collectively realized the truce must end, Dean shook Novak's hand again and resolutely turned his back.

He didn't glance back. Let him never suffer the fate of Lot's wife, to regret that lost and impossible.

* _Maybe, if we_ _somehow_ _both_ _survive this,_ _I'll_ _see him again..._ *

* _...always were completely crazy, Winchester...ain't no way any of us is getting out if this alive._ *

* _But it was nice while_ _it_ _lasted._ *

Climbing back into the trench, Dean took the stub of his earlier cigarette, grown cold and sodden, and wrapped it carefully in a kerchief.

* _Maybe..._ *

* _...maybe..._ *

The rattle of gunfire broke the twilight silence and the dreams of Christmas day faded. There was only the trench and his rifle and his fellow soldiers and the certain doom that cast a pall over them all...

...no. There was one other thing, the memory of a smile, the bitterness of smoke still tangy on Dean's lips. The day had been a dream, the best kind of dream, and no number of nightmarish days could ever take that dream away from him. His hand settled on thee kerchief tucked safely in his pocket, and at a called command he resumed his post.

* _Maybe...someday...somewhere...maybe_ _I'll_ _find_ _myself_ _in a place where_ _I'm_ _allowed_ _to hold_ _this hope in my bosom._ *

* _Someday._ *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By popular request - and due to my own hatred of sad endings - I've decided to add to this. I've also added a few tags. Note that character death isn't one of them so please don't worry...

To: D. Winchester, 1/17th Battalion, 47th Division, BEF   
Jan 5 1915

Would you care to maintain a correspondence, as we are able?   
Sincerely,  
C.E. Novak

*

To: C.E. Novak, 5th Army, 13th Corps, 27th Division  
March 10, 1915

Sorry it took me so long to write back. Didn't get yours of Jan 5 till the end of February. Figuring out how to get a letter back to you was nigh impossible too. But here we are hopefully this'll reach you. Paper is scarce so till I know you got this I'll just leave things at  
Your friend  
D. W.

*

To D. Winchester,   
March 21, 1915

I have received yours, and more quickly than you did mine. I will endeavor to find a more rapid means of sending post; my first went by way of a school friend who remains in England. Rather a circuitous route, but at least the war has not so made us strangers and enemies that I was prevented sending it.

This winter has had uncommonly poor weather I think. We woke several mornings to find comrades frozen through. Have you experienced similar? At least it temporarily calmed the fighting.

When last we spoke you told me much of your family, especially your brother. Have you heard from them? Are they well? My family remains as I informed you, my mother indifferent since I'm not an officer as my elder brothers are, my father's command stationed who-knows-where. Were I willing to serve under one of them I could have title and medals galore but at the cost of prostrating myself to their ideas of how a right and proper man behaves? Never this side of death will I agree to the evils that they espouse. If I'm to fight for a cause I don't believe in let it be that I fight, rather than sit in a gilded war room and issue commands that cause the suffering of millions. At least in the trenchea, I endanger only myself, the men to my left and my right, and the soldiers facing us.

Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of a helmet or the gleam off a rifle across the no man's land I wonder if it's you. When we shoot at that ripe target, when I hear the cries that speak to Death finding his mark, I fear you've been murdered by my hand. How much harder this is - and it was never easy - when every so-called enemy can be supposed to wear a known face, speak with a familiar voice, relate a comforting tale of family and longed-for homecoming.

I hope you are well,  
C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,  
April 10, 1915

You sure write a damn sight prettier than you talk. Sorry again to hear what a pack of asses your brothers and parents are. Why'd you bother fighting at all? With your college and your English couldn't they get you a desk job? Heck you still got buds that'll take your post couldn't you have stayed with them? Or I've heard some folks fled to the UK or US - asked for asylum or something - but I don't know the particulars. You can see what a shit job I did evading the recruiters - I'm not even a Brit yet here I am filling out one of their damned BEF uniforms. But if Kansas ain't to fight and I'm stuck in England anyway I might as well be the man and do my part. Wasn't anything for me to stay in London for anyway (and plenty of reason for me to leave, but that's too long a story for a half-sheet).

Thanks for asking after my family. My mail comes so scattershot it's hard to figure out what's what with them but things seem alright. My latest by date arrived two weeks back, though I've had several older since. My brothers talks of college, my parents despair of paying, the farm is prepped for spring planting which in all likelihood they completed a week ago at least, and life sounds the same there today as it's been every day and every week and every year of my life. The rhythms are familiar and damn are they boring as sin. Reminds me why I left, cept now I wonder if being boring wouldn't be better than being dead.

Too late now. I ain't dead yet but I might as well be.

Also you ass I can't believe you wrote to me about the Goddamn weather. These trenches are so deep I can hardly tell if it's sunny or cloudy, but I guess I can enter into any complaint you care to venture bout the rain. My feet haven't been dry in a month. I'm afraid to take my boots off for what I might see when I expose my toes.

Don't die,  
D. Winchester

*

To D. Winchester,  
April 24, 1915

Write me at once upon receipt of this missive to reassure me that you live.

I am disgusted by what our generals have wrought. Never have I seen anything so horrific as the smoky clouds of gas drifting over the fields of St. Julien. How can we do this to one another? How can we be humans? Nay, we must all of us be devils and damned.

C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,  
April 30, 1915

I'm as well as can be expected. I was upwind and missed the worst of it; the Canadians and French have not faired so well. I caught a whiff of something unholy and have been coughing up blood ever since. All of us have been, but we'll live provided the next attack don't strike our part of the line. Care to give me a hint or two in that regard, buddy?

With you all attacking us on the regular no mail can get through. Not sure what I've got to write that you've not seen yourself - heaps of dead, gas clouds aplenty, machine gun fire thick enough to reap a field as neat as any scythe, and no way of telling from the pits who wins and loses each exchange. Wait, no, I know who wins - the politicians and generals and arms makers and every bastard who started this war and makes their bread by it. Me and you and those in the line with us? We're not your devils, Novak. We're cogs on gears so big we can't begin to guess who makes the wheels turns. Joffree and French and whoever else, they're your devils. Your real evil knows better than to risk itself in frontal assault - why should a demon go to the front when he can get a million dumb chumps like us to do it for him?

We're the damned; the devils extract their pound of flesh from each of us and fuck do I hope they choke on it.

Don't die,   
D. Winchester

*

To D. Winchester,  
May 12, 1915

I can't write of our movements and tactics and stratagem - you know that, you must know that - so pray don't ask me where the next attack comes. Even if I knew I couldn't risk telling you. I believe the route these letters take free of censors but the risk isn't worth the reward. Even should you come into information, what would you do with it? As you say, we're the nobodies of this conflict. The somebodies take no notice of us, and would not believe you nor I with such flimsy proof as a letter. Even if events prove your intelligence correct they'd still blame someone else for their failure, as they've done countless times already.

And as I would never betray my cause, no matter how vile I at times think it to be, you may at least rest assured that I shall never ask you to betray yours.

Here's a modest proposal for you (with no babies eaten, no matter what Swift suggests) - from now on what say we talk nothing of the war?

I've enclosed a flower I pressed after finding it sprouting on the revetment. It was surely wrong of me to pick it and deny everyone else the sight of it, the cheery reminder that while we blow each other to flinders the world continues to turn and there is a place, somewhere, witnessing the return of spring. Yet had I left it, we'd have all been forced to watch it whither and die beneath the same barrage that makes men whither and die. So I took it, selfishly, and pressed it, an eternal reminder of beauty preserved like the photograph of a sweetheart from home. I hope you like it.

I kept a garden at home. My parents thought it frivolous. I didn't care a jot for what they thought then and care less now. If I return home I'll rip out every trench and shell and redoubt and replace the lot with flowers, and the only buzzing shall be the bees and grasshoppers, the only glance of pain the passing flit of an unwelcome mosquito.

Damn. Even when I try not to speak of our predicament I am drawn back. This war does ** **not** ** consume the whole world, I know it does not, for the flowers yet bloom. But it circumscribes my world so completely that there is no escaping reference to it. Every point circles back to the essential, inescapable reality of this forsaken conflict and our doom wrought thereby.

I'm sorry to end on such a cheery note but I've none better and am out of paper.

Be well,  
C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,  
May 23, 1915

My brother got this clever idea to play a prank on me, so he set a pail up over the barn door so it'd dump a mess of dirt on my head when I went in to do the milking. Cept he didn't know ma was getting the eggs early for her baking so she goes into the barn and wham bam bucket on the head, dirt everywhere, total mess and down her dress and all. She don't know what's happened and is so startled she screams like her lungs are getting ripped out. So my dad grabs his rifle and storms out shouting to wake the devil that "I'm comin' Mary ain't no one hurts my family!" and on and on and he's got the damn gun aimed at the barn but it's a bright morning so the interior might as well have been pitch. Ma goes stumbling outside, skin all black from the dirt, hands flapping at her chest trying to brush the mess off and dad assumes the worst and opens fire into the doorway and hits the rope holding up the trap door for the grain so it opens and out spills our barley. That perks up every animal in the place, and next shot can't even be heard over the caterwall of stomping and neighing and mooing and the chickens come from all over to peck peck peck.

Sam didn't know he'd never have got me with his pail and his dirt cause I was hid in the hayloft when he did it. So I saw the whole thing and damn if it wasn't my chance cause dad is shouting curses and trying to reload and the whole scene is making so much damn noise and Sam is gonna try to weasel out I just know it and pin the blame on me. I take my work knife, cut my arm and smear the blood all over myself and take a pratfall through the open hatch onto the grain pile and play dead. Ma goes into hysterics, pa is speechless for the first time ever, and then Sam comes in wailing about how it was just a joke and he didn't know it'd go wrong and I hop to it, "haha I got you, I got you you damn bitch!" Dad never laughed so hard and I thought Sam might kill me for real and Ma fainted and made me scrub her pots for scaring the bejesus outta her but it was worth it cause Sam had to clean the whole barn mess up himself and do my morning chores for a month. Never tried to prank me again.

See? An entire letter with no mention of the war. Your turn.

I hope I made you laugh. You got the prettiest laugh I ever heard. I mean handsomest. Can a laugh be handsome? Damn. If I had more paper I'd scrap this whole letter and try again but as it's writ and I'm spent so I guess I might as well send it as not.

Thank you for the flower. It's awesome.

Don't die,  
D. Winchester

*

To D. Winchester,  
September 2nd, 1915

Your letter did make me laugh. I'm so sorry it took me so long to reply. My unit has been moved to the Eastern front. I see my brother's hand in this. Correspondence isn't impossible but will be sorely delayed. It took months for yours to reach me and weeks more for me to determine a return route to you.

Damn it, I'm talking about the war.

My brothers and I did not engage in such shenanigans. Our parents didn't tolerate fun. I feel like I should answer your anecdote with one of my own but I can think of nothing light hearted. My childhood was not a happy one. I envy you yours, despite what you've told me of your poverty. I have the luxury of saying I'd trade my family's wealth for your family's joy. Perhaps I do not value what I had as I ought.

It's hard to think of anything save the war. It is cold and bleak here. I wish I was anywhere else in the world, except back facing you. At least here I can be sure that you are not among those I shoot at.

And you are wrong about my laugh. I have heard it with little happiness these 23 years. But imagining your mirth warms my nights and comforts my days.

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you will be able to write back.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen,   
C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,  
October 10th, 1915

I am damn glad to hear from you I was a damn sight worried that we'd gotten you and I could never have forgiven myself if that happened as sure as if I pulled the trigger myself. Here's an idea - from now on we each write once every other month even if we haven't heard from the other. If you'd done that I'd have heard from you sooner, and maybe one of my other letters woulda reached you earlier.

I wouldn't know about taking wealth for granted, having never had none, but for what it's worth I wouldn't trade my family for your money. I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable. But if rich and happy were an option that'd be grand.

I haven't been moved. Still in the same hell you left behind. Tell me bout your new hell. There's no way not to talk about the war and at least hearing bout how things stink there will give my hell some variety.

Got a letter from my brother. Damn glad that kid is only 16, he's way too young to worry about having to come to Europe if my countryfolk ever get off their asses and pitch in for the good fight (that'd be my side by the way. Sorry you're over there with the losers.) Anyway things are good with him. Looks like he'll be going to college sooner rather than later. Probably before I get home (if I get home). The school is in California. By the time I see him again he won't have time for his podunk wheezing older brother.

I've enclosed a drawing my friend Benny did of me. I don't know much about art and haven't seen myself reflected in a couple years but I'm told there's a resemblance. Pretty sure I'm a damn sight uglier than this though. Sorry for the false advertising.

Don't die,  
D. Winchester

*

To D. Winchester,  
November 8th, 1915

I'm sorry my silence distressed you. I'll not let it happen again. We both have so much to cause us horror and chagrin that anything I can do to alleviate even one source of your unhappiness is worth any outlay of effort.

I don't know how to fill the page though.

It's cold here. I do not like it.

My transfer appears to have been engineered to bring me under the command of my elder brother M. I was visited by a pompous ass in epaulettes - of all the ostentatious affectations! - who informed me I was now on M.'s personal staff and over my objections I was forcibly relocated to his camp miles from the front. Apparently I am now an attache. Just what I always wanted. I shouldn't complain of promotion yet I cannot be sanguine with this alteration in position. Nothing could be further from my wishes. Such a change would better suit you, for you far underestimate your worth. I'm sure you would excel in a position of command. Your brother will be extremely proud of you and all you've accomplished, so please don't denigrate yourself so undeservedly.

Thank you for the drawing. It is your very image, and I treasure it.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen,   
C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,   
January 6th, 1916

Got a pile of your letters today all at once. No idea if you got mine, though judging by what you wrote I'd guess not. Damnation. Trying a different post method for this one so here's hoping.

Not that I got much to say. Nothing much has changed. It's cold and bloody and loud. Benny, as did that drawing, died a couple weeks back, so that was garbage. Didn't think I could get any lonelier- that'll learn me. I'm sorry your brother is an ass. You're wrong bout me and command though. I didn't even finish school, no one in their right mind would let me lead troops or do anything else that requires a brain. I'm the muscles of the operation, always have been - not that muscles do no good out here.

Though come to think I couldn't do worse than our current batch if jackanapes.

Don't die,   
D. Winchester

*

To D. Winchester,   
February 4th, 1916

You are correct that I hadn't received your monthly letters but now I have them all and they have lifted my spirits at a difficult time. (There are no other than difficult times now.)

I don't know what more to say. I don't wish to write of the war. I don't wish to worry you with my concerns. I can at least assure you by writing that I've not died, as your sign off always so obligingly asks.

I'm sorry I've not got time nor energy nor supplies to write more but I swear if I send but a line I shall continue our correspondence to the last, and beyond if I might. Anticipating word from you gives me something to live for. As strange as it sounds you give me something to fight for, because only by fighting dare we hope for a speedy send to the conflict, and dare I hope for a life beyond the war.

Most of the time that seems too fanciful a hope even for my dreams. Instead I dream of smoke and fire and only dissipate the horrors by glancing at your portrait.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen,   
C.E. Novak

*

To C.E. Novak,   
February 27th, 1916

Hell I'm just going to ask bout what I've been wondering for a year. There's something here right? Between you and me? I'm not just imagining things, hallucinating like I got a dose of gas? When you sent me the flower, when you talk about my portrait, I wonder, but I'm a damn optimist and more the idiot for it and so if you could tell me straight one way or the other that'd do a lot to ease my mind.

Cause I want there to be something. Between you and me I mean. I dream bout surviving this and seeing you again. Now which of us sounds crazy?

If we see the other end of this alive maybe come find me? 10 Elm Road Lawrence Kansas. Or I could try to find you if I knew where to look.

Only if you want to.

Either way I'll never stop hoping you don't die,   
D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
March 30th 1916

Latest circulars say that one Michael Novak got his ass beat at Lake something or other out east and I'd take it damn kind if you'd write back as soon as possible and let me know you made it out.

Sorry if my last letter screwed everything up.

Don't die,  
D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
April 15, 1916

I know it's too soon since my last but write back whenever you see this and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
June 15, 1916

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
September 15, 1916

Sorry I missed last month, I got shot. About as much fun as it sounds. Don't worry, I'm fine. Already back on the line. I'll write more whenever you want, just write me back. Anything. Please.

Don't be dead. It's ok if you hate me for going queer on you but tell me you're alive.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
November 15, 1916

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
December 25, 1916

Merry Christmas, Novak. Look, they sent us pretty cards. We sure needed those more than the gas masks we're still waiting on.

Only Christmas present I want is a letter that you're not dead. Maybe old St. Nick can bring me that - I've been a damn good boy this year,  followed all my orders. Killed a mess of people. Heck I'd take my lump of coal for my sins, least that'd keep me warm.

Write back and tell me you're not dead. I'm begging you man.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
February 15, 1917

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
April 15, 1917

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
June 15, 1917

Writing feels pointless. But I don't know what else to do. I asked someone what "Mit herzlichen Grüßen" means and they said some nonsense bout yours truly but, like, for serious, not like we use it. Like you're saying you're truly mine. Is that true?

If so you're a damn fool. No one like you should waste your time with a dolt like me.

But still. Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
August 15, 1917

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
October 15, 1917

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
December 15, 1917

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
February 15, 1918

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
April 15, 1918

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
June 15, 1918

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
August 15, 1918

Write back and tell me you're not dead.

D. Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,   
October 30, 1918

It looks like this war is winding down. How impossible is that? It'd be damn nice to hear from you one more time before I escape this pit.

But as I figure it, either that last letter I sent where I shot my mouth off about feelings like a dumbass scared you off or you're gone.

Please...please, Cas...just, if you get this, would you tell me you're alive?

Yours,   
Dean Winchester

*

To C.E. Novak,  
November 12, 1918

You're dead, ain't you.

Fuck.

D. Winchester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure when the last chapter will come but probably not too long from now, I want to finish this up.


	3. Chapter 3

Coughs scoured Dean's throat and wracked his chest. Turning away from his brother to hide the pain on his face, he covered his mouth until the fit passed. Wiping tears from his eyes as he took labored breaths, he smeared the blood on his palm over his dark jeans before Sam could see.

Sam must never see.

Goddamn, Dean was too young to be so fucking old.

"Dean..." Sam sighed, coming up behind him and clapping a hand on his shoulder so powerfully he nearly drove Dean to his knees.

"Enough," snapped Dean, hoarse and exhausted. "I'm done talking about this."

"Fantastic." Sam rolled his eyes and gave Dean a sarcastic look. " 'Cause not talking about important stuff has always been such an effective means of handling our problems."

"Can't you just leave it alone? I'm * _fine._ *"

The declaration would have been more convincing if Dean's vehemence hadn't caused another coughing fit. When he stopped, Sam watched him with concern and pity, which was even worse than when he looked judgmental.

"I'm allowed to worry about you," said Sam gently. "I'm allowed to--"

A knock on the door interrupted Sam. The brothers exchanged a glance. Since Dean moved from his parents' place, since Sam moved in with him, they'd gotten exactly zero unexpected visitors.

Such exciting lives they led.

* _Nothin' wrong with boring. I've had enough excitement for a damn lifetime. Now all I want is to be left the hell alone._ *

When Dean made no move to answer, Sam walked over. "We're not done talking about this," he warned.

"Whatever, bitch," said Dean, rising to head for the back of the house and avoid their undesired company. "Just make the cracker salesman or Mormon or whoever it is goes the heck away. I gotta get to work."

He didn't have to get to work. But Sam didn't know that, and it made for a convenient escape excuse.

As he stomped up the creaky stares, he half listened as the front door squeaked open and Sam greeted whoever was there. There was a puzzled note in Sam's voice that Dean thought nothing of until--

"Sorry to intrude." A man's voice, deep and raspy and German accented and achingly familiar, arrested Dean.

* _Impossible._ *

"I'm looking for this man - his name is Dean Winchester - I've been told he lives here?"

"Cas?" Dean whispered.

* _No, it can't be. No matter how alive he is in my dreams, Cas is dead. He must be dead._ *

"I'm sorry, who are you and--"

"Cas?" Dean called. Unthinking, he turned and leapt down the stairs, his bad leg barely catching his weight as he barreled across the room.

"Dean, what--?"

Dean shoved Sam out of the doorway, breathing hard.

"Cas."

Castiel sat on their rickety porch in a dusty wheelchair, left side of his face marred by parallel burn scars, his arm on that side dangling awkwardly, his leg a stump cut off near the hip. His right leg ended at the knee. In his good hand, he held forward a scrap of paper bearing, unmistakably, Dean's likeness - the portrait Benny did a few days before he got blown to bits. Despite Castiel's wounds, he hardly looked a day older though a decade had passed since the single day they'd spent together. Dean's stomach flipped, a morass of joy and sympathy that he could make no sense of roiling him, and his throat tickled with a nascent cough.

"Hello, Dean."

Their eyes met and Castiel offered Dean an uncertain half-smile.

"Castiel." The threatened coughing fit ripped through Dean, worse than the previous two. Dean dropped to his knees, wheezing between spasms, "You're dead." His coughs broke him, twisted his insides, and he felt a spike of shame that upon their first greeting after so long, Castiel should see him at his worse. His watery gaze showed him Cas still before him, sympathy on his face. He was neither whole nor hale but alive and present and more gorgeous than in Dean's fondest fantasies.

* _I don't need to be ashamed of my cough, not with him. He was there. He understands._ *

With a cry, he threw his arms around Cas' neck, buried his face against Castiel's shoulder, and coughed and sobbed.

* _I should be ashamed. I'm crying. And he never wrote me back._ *

"You stupid son of a bitch, I thought you were dead."

* _Why is he here? Why now? I shouldn't assume anything about his presence, his motivation..._ *

Fingers skimmed hesitantly down his back and an arm embraced him. The armrest and seat edge dug into Dean's side, and his coughs finally subsided. His tears continued.

* _He's alive, and he ditched me._ *

"Ahem," Sam interrupted. Mortified, Dean tore himself from Castiel and stumbled to his feet. "One of your war buddies?"

"What makes you think that?" Dean snapped defensively. Sam quirked an eyebrow at Dean and made a gesture that took in Castiel's scars and wheelchair both. Dean scowled. "Yeah - right. Yes, we met during the war. Sam, this is Cas Novak. Cas, my brother Sam."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," said Castiel. "I've heard so much about you."

"Uh oh - all good, I hope?" Sam laughed. Happiness was so easy for him. "Wish I could say the same, but, um, Dean's never mentioned you." Dean was glad Sam didn't carry the weight of experiences and memories that shackled Dean, but damn if he wasn't jealous, too. "Please come in - Dean, you gonna make him hang out on the porch?"

Right. Dean was blocking the door. Grumbling frustration with his own stupidity, Dean stepped into the living room, dropped into an arm chair and stared angrily at the opposite wall. The fireplace was cold in summer, the mantle adorned with dusty photographs - Dean in his uniform, Sam at his graduation, their parents on their wedding day, and a tattered pressed flower framed with a stained rectangle of crinkled paper. Castiel, unlike everyone around him, would know what the flower meant. He side-eyed Cas as he rolled into the room, but though Castiel looked around he didn't appear to notice the frame.

Thank God.

Dean was embarrassed, by his coughing, by his unwarranted reaction to Castiel's appearance, by his obliviousness at the door, by the shambles of the worn old house he and Sam called home, by the nostalgia betrayed by displaying the pressed flower. In his imagination, when he let himself dream the impossible, his reunion with Cas was nothing like this. They'd meet at a club, handsome in their uniforms or dressed to the nines in tailored suits. Dean would say something clever and Castiel would be swept away. They'd grin and they'd dance. They'd go home together every night, wake up together every morning. It was a ridiculous fantasy for a man like Dean, and not only because Castiel was dead.

Except Castiel wasn't dead.

And Dean was acting like a damn fool.

"...right, Dean?"

Fuck, Sam was talking to him.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

The answer seemed to satisfy Sam on whatever point he'd raised, for he returned his attention of Castiel. The two exchanged pleasant small talk about Sam's education and Castiel's journey from Germany and it was all so insufferably inane that Dean couldn't bring himself to listen. His thoughts circled through the questions he couldn't answer - * _Why is Castiel here? What happened to him? Why did he never write back to me? Why come now?_ *

Scowling, Dean glanced from the mantleplace to Castiel, to find Castiel staring at him, eyes narrowed with sadness, mouth a thin, flat line. God, Castiel was gorgeous, scarred and damaged and as perfect as the day they'd met. Dean was captivated.

"I should go," Castiel interrupted a startled Sam, who'd been saying something about...puppies, maybe?

"Why?" squawked Sam. "You just got here - at least let us feed you. Dean makes a mean omelette."

"Why should I wish cruel food? Besides, Dean doesn't want me here," said Castiel sadly, breaking eye contact.

"He doesn't?"

* _Do I?_ *

"I don't?"

* _I do, I really do - I never want you to leave, Cas, but..._ *

"It was...presumptuous...of me. I shouldn't have...I'm sorry. I'll go." Castiel used his good arm to place his unresponsive one on the wheel, got a grip on the other wheel, and turned himself toward the door. Every move was slow, laborious, and Dean longed to help, even rose from his chair and took a step forward, but he restrained himself. It wasn't his place to aid Castiel. Despite everything they had been to each other during the war, somehow they were nothing to each other now.

* _If_ _we ever were actually anything to_ _each_ _other...if our_ _rapport_ _wasn't_ _just_ _in_ _my head..._ *

* _If he wants to go--_ *

Sharp pain in his arm brought a grunt from Dean; he'd been so intent watching Castiel leave he'd not noticed his brother coming up beside him until Sam punched him in the arm.

"What the hell--?"

"Say something, you jerk," hissed Sam.

"But--"

"You'll regret it if you don't."

Sam was right. As usual. Damn the bitch.

"Cas," Dean croaked. He felt like he'd forgotten how to speak. If Castiel heard Dean, he didn't react, rolling up to the door and awkwardly trying to maintain his forward momentum while opening it.

"Cas, wait."

Castiel went still.

"I mean, go if you want to go. But I, uh, I hope you'll stay. I'd like it if you stayed."

Castiel turned one wheel, and so turned the chair, to face Dean. "You don't have to pretend you desired a reunion simply because I'm here now. You don't owe me courtesy after I turned up uninvited. After what you wrote me...but it's been a long time and I have made assumptions based on my own hopes and desires without bothering to consider what you might actual wish. Your true feelings are only too obvious."

"Damn, they are? That's news to me." Dean laughed humorlessly, dropping back into his chair and slumping forward, head on his hands. Castiel blinked. "Maybe you can enlighten me, then? I ain't got a clue what my feelings are."

"Maybe I should--"

"I get that I'm being an ass," Dean continued, talking over Sam. Whatever his brother had to say could wait. If Dean stopped talking now he'd never get going again, and Castiel would leave and Dean would never get another chance to say...whatever he was going to say. "Sorry bout that. I'm just...I'm really confused. Really really really fucking confused. I don't get why you'd come to fricken Kansas when you could do literally anything else...and I don't understand why you've let me think you're dead for four damn years. Why didya come here, man?"

"For you," said Castiel as if it were the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. "Why else would I come to Lawrence?"

Dean gawked.

"Sorry to interrupt but I'm gonna go. Over there. Now. Dean, you know where to find me if you need me." Sam suited his actions to his words, bolting for the back kitchen door.

Dean was alone with Castiel. He could say anything he wanted, do anything he wanted, without fear of condemnation.

He continued to gawk.

"Is it so hard to believe that the pleasure of your company could draw me hence?" asked Castiel.

"Yes! It's impossible!" spluttered Dean.

"How so?"

"It..." Put on the spot, Dean could think of no concrete reason beyond his conviction that he was right. No one, especially not Castiel, would put themselves out for Dean. Heck, Castiel couldn't be fussed to write a single damn letter in five years. "It just * _is._ * You wouldn't...you * _didn't_ *..."

"I'm sorry I didn't write," said Castiel, hesitantly rolling back toward Dean, but he stopped close enough to the door that he could still make a hasty escape. Dean expected him to flee any moment; it's what Dean would have done, had their positions been reversed. "Believe me, I'd not have disappointed you for the world had I any choice in the matter. Your correspondence meant everything to me. But I received no more letters after my injury and, confined to a bed, frequently delirious from pain and illness, I had no means to outreach to you, no privacy at all, for months. Communicating with you, our ostensible enemy, was anathema, and had anyone suspected my real reason for wishing to write, that would have been worse still."

Throat suddenly dry, heart beating far too quickly with something that felt suspiciously like wild, uncontrollable, desperate, impossible hope, Dean wheezed,  "Your...your real reason...for writing?" He scarce got the words out befoee his lungs seized and he broke into a coughing fit.

When his vision cleared, Castiel sat opposite him, so close Dean was trapped in his chair. Carefully, Castiel drew a tattered, yellowed, crinkled sheet of paper from his wallet. He set the wallet on his thigh, unfolded the paper, and squinted at it fondly.

"'To C.E. Novak. Hell,'" Castiel read. "'I'm just going to ask bout what I've been wondering for a year.'" The words, hauntingly familiar, sounded strange in Castiel's stilted, accented English. "'There's something here right? Between you and me?'" Castiel refolded the letter and replaced it in his billfold. "I was never able to answer, first because I wasn't st liberty, and subsequently...for a long time, I thought I * _shouldn't._ * Though I believed I'd made my inclinations clear over the course of our correspondence, I was...I * _am_ *...no longer the man to whom you extended this overture. The war had fostered enmity between us, as I was reminded when I went to the address you'd provided and was told to leave at the end of a rifle. You didn't harbor such prejudice once upon a time, but people change. I've changed too..." Castiel sighed and gestured at himself.

"What?" asked Dean. Castiel quirked an eyebrow at him, or tried - the scarring on the side of his face made the expression awkward. "Don't get me wrong, obviously you've got some issues now that you didn't then, but who doesn't?" A single cough, unintentional but apropos, burst from him.

"The gas damaged your lungs?" Castiel surmised.

Dean nodded.

They sat facing each other, Castiel in his wheelchair, Dean on the worn armchair, and Dean supposed that Castiel was at as much of a loss as to what to say next as Dean was. He seemed continually on the verge of opening his mouth, so Dean waited patiently, but Castiel never spoke and silence enveloped them. Finally, Castiel leaned forward, reached out and ran his finger gently over the curve of Dean's chin. Dean shivered and pushed forward into the gesture, but it was over in a moment and Castiel's hand came away streaked red with blood.

"How serious is it?" he asked.

"Not so much so that it's likely to kill me before something else does," Dean replied with gruff dismissiveness. Castiel nodded, wiped the blood on his hand, and leaned back. Dean appreciated him not belaboring the point.

"So..."

"So, what?" Castiel sounded baffled.

"You gonna answer?" Dean clarified. Castiel looked even more confused. "You never answered my question. From the lettter. Is there something...something good...between you and me?"

"You'd still like there to be?"

"Fuck yeah," breathed Dean. A smile lit Castiel's handsome face. "Cas, you are * _so_ * out of my league."

"I don't know what that means." The smile faded to frustration.

"It means you're a damn sight too smart, too rich, and too good looking to waste your time on me," Dean explained.

"None of three." Castiel shook his head. "The war killed two of my brothers and ruined my family. It took me two years of saving and the use of every Oxford contact still living and willing to talk to me for me to secure passage to the United States. I've nothing but this conveyance," he tapped the wheelchair, "and the clothes you see me in. I am by no means wealthy. As to good looking? I'd not say so..." He skimmed a finger over his scarred, ridged cheek. "Especially not compared with..." He gestured at Dean, who flushed. "But if you say you find me attractive, I've been told beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"What, * _that_ * idiom you know? Figures."

"And while I am smart--"

"Modest, too!"

Castiel frowned. "Your interruptions are not making this easier, nor will they prevent me saying what must be said. Hopefully I can dispel once and for all the sense of inferiority you nurse, so obvious in your letters and in your disbelief that I might come to Kansas to see you. Dean, you are..." To Dean's amazement, Castiel flushed and looked away. "You're remarkable. Special. Beautiful. You make me feel..."

Dean waited on tenterhooks for the end of the sentence. When none came, he dared to ask, "I make you feel * _what?_ *"

"No...no." Castiel shook his head and looked up. Astonishing blue, so bright Dean wondered how he'd missed it throughout their conversation, caught Dean and captured him. He was owned, completely, as surely as the BEF had owned his sorry ass for four years. "You. Make. Me. * _Feel._ *"

Oh.

"Oh."

Dean stared dumbly, unable to look away. Castiel reached out and laid his hand over Dean's racing heart and smiled serenely, closing his eyes and freeing Dean from his spell.

"I thought I had forgotten how," Castiel whispered.

"Me...me too," Dean confessed.

"I came here for you," Castiel continued. "Because I had to know if you still feel as you did when you wrote this letter. Fear that you might have changed your mind kept me at bay, but ultimately I realized that the risk of rejection paled in comparison with the rewards of acceptance. So here I am. I'm at your mercy, Dean Winchester. Do with me as you will."

Stunned, awed, overwhelmed by disbelief and desire and hope, Dean memorized every line of Castiel's face and reveled in the hope and earnestness he saw there. Emotions beyond desolation burned hot through a body so chilled Dean had thought he'd never feel warm again. Unable to find any words, he reached out and placed a hand on Castiel's chest, mirroring Castiel's gesture. Castiel startled, then eased back in his chair with a sigh. Castiel's vibrant heartbeat thrummed between his palm.

* _Alive._ _We're_ _both...we're both so alive when_ _we're_ _together..._ *

"We could plant a garden," Dean suggested weakly.

"I'd like that." Castiel smiled.

"I, uh, I thought you would." Dean smiled back. He'd never felt bashful about a partner before.

* _I_ _never_ _cared_ _what_ _they_ _thought_ _of_ _me. But Cas...I...I...I_ *need* _Castiel_ _, and_ _I_ _want him to need me too. If he doesn't...if he_ _leaves_ _now..._ *

"I'm glad you're here, Cas."

"I'm glad * _we're_ * here, Dean."

* _If_ _he leaves now..._ *

"Stay with me?" asked Dean plaintively.

Castiel opened his dazzling eyes, smiled, and nodded. Dean grinned, heart and head as light as a feather.

Laughter overflowed from each of them, the sun coming out from behind a decade of storm clouds. They'd survived, and endured, and suffered, and now, finally, Dean had his answer from Castiel after years of waiting and it was more glorious than he'd dared to hope. Dean could feel, and he had a future again where he'd thought he had none.

There was so much to plan for tomorrow.

"My mom's got this rose bush she's been nurturing since who knows when. She keeps offering me clippings and I always said no, cause..." * _Cause what was the point of fostering life and beauty when I was twisted and dead?_ * "...but she'd be thrilled if I actually asked for it, and we could..."

* _...and we could live, Cas...we could live together,_ _be_ _alive together..._ *

And Castiel listened, and nodded, and smiled sunshine and light and joy, and all was right with the world.


End file.
